


Work of Art

by orphan_account



Series: From Russia, With Love [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, I know so little about Soviet Russia, Please Forgive me, anyway I really love these two so here goes, it's a story about memories i guess and the power of memories, lots of flashbacks, so mild anti-semitism i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lilia sees the skaters dancing at the banquet and reflects on old times.  A story about memory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to the cherished memory of Jamie P, an artist and dear friend gone too soon.

Those who are still youthful dance. They spin around each other all smiles and laughs, lithe and joyous, caught up in only their glory and lost only in the minutes, thinking only of the current notes of music and their next dance steps. Her eyes fall on a young woman with dark hair and bright eyes being spun by a man with a proud smile and they look at each other. The Canadian skater and his fiancée, Lilia notes and she cannot hold back a quiver of a smile when the arrogant man dips the woman back.

_Happy children._ Lilia catches herself thinking. She sits at the table with the others who have aged, who were once merry themselves. She does not turn when she sees the all too familiar figure sits beside her, instead keeping her gaze fixated on dancers, watching as the same young woman takes each heel off, one at a time, before leaping into the Canadian’s arms. Their own champion stands off to the side, smiling quietly at an older boy. The Hero of Kazakhstan. That was what they called him. She swears she sees them gaze at each other.

***

Once upon a time she, too, was sixteen and lively, convinced she was queen of the world and full of dreams. At that point, the country, her home, was in disarray and still she danced. The Bolshoi was, for her, a political statement, an unwavering determination to create beauty. And still the studio’s cold walls were not as frigid and not as grey as the world outside. The company breathed life to it. That was their pride. 

She was the Lilac Fairy that season. And he was there, the earnest, scowling young man. Yakov. “The Jew” they had called him. He didn’t dance. He mended costumes, quickly, dexterously the moment the dancers slid off stage. But oh how he watched. She saw that he had an eye for movement that none of the dancers, themselves, seemed to possess. When they waited in the wings, time after time, show after show, only exchanging scant words, she watched him study the motions of the dancers. He did not look like a dancer, or even an athlete, short and stocky, strong but not muscular, not even reaching Lilia’s shoulder and yet he understood every motion, every step. And when they closed, he looked at her, eyes swimming with concern, asking,

“Is it true that they say you are going to be the next prima ballerina?”

She was about to address him as the Jew and tell him to busy himself with his own matters. Instead she said,

“What makes you ask that, Yakov?” And when she spoke his eyes lit up.

“Because I have a good feeling that you will be. And I anticipate it.”

And she laughed with her dark brows perfectly arched.

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Are you not my friend?”

She did not know it was so easy to become someone’s friend.

And then friendship became stolen kisses in the wings. He would wait while the dancers bowed and as they all made their exits, she was always last. The others flocked to the dressing room and left the two of them. Only when the chatter died did they walk back to the dressing room, laughing quietly among themselves. The Prima Ballerina’s personal suite was always adorned with roses, letters declaring love and devotion, promises of eternal happiness. And yet, all she saw was the ever-thawing expression of the young man, hair dark and thick in his face. He did not see the prima ballerina in those moments. He saw a hopeful, passionate young woman, who was elegant even in how she loved. Yakov was convinced he could never love elegantly.

They would walk along the snowy streets, her hair still slicked back into a bun tied under vibrant scarves. They would sneak together into underground dance halls and the snow on their jackets would melt the second they walked in to the crowded rooms. When they danced they laughed. He would spin her and she would have to duck her head. They moved together and sometimes sang along when the songs had lyrics. They were youthful so they danced.

Other attendees would recognize her as the prima ballerina, awed by the presence before them and Yakov would find himself only smiling. He loved her.

***

“He reminds me of Yitschak.” He had said to her, his voice, gruff and aged, softening to a near whisper. She closed her eyes, picturing Yitschak once more, all long limbs and green eyes, impassioned with the tempers of both his parents.

Yakov was not wrong. He shoved the boy up to her and the young man, the teenager, the child, looked at her with green eyes blazing. In that moment, she did not allow any softness to cross her face. But she met Yakov’s eyes for the first time in years and she nodded, wordlessly telling him

_This is for Yitschak. And not for you._

***

“I’m pregnant.” She had told him before they were ready, rather, before she was ready to retire. She sighed slowly, wringing her fingers on the table in front of her. She was at the top of career, or so she told herself. She was young but that was made her the best.

They weren’t yet married when she told him. 

“It could kill you if you abort it here.” He told her in earnestness and fear and he ran his thumb along her tear streaked cheek, bending down for once as she sat instead of standing on his toes to kiss her. They agreed that adoption would be the best option and with training and hard work perhaps she could dance again. Her face was plastered across newspapers. “Prima Ballerina of Bolshoi Ballet Expecting Child,” the tamest ones read. She did not look at the others. Neither of them did. Those same, kinder papers had the decency to use one of her performance photographs, the one of her dancing in Swan Lake, wide eyed with her lips ever so slightly parted. She choked back a sob when she saw the photograph, truly facing the reality of the situation. She crouched and sobbed into his chest and he stroked her hair as she tightly wound her arms around his frame, much wider than hers. Together they cried for months. Even at twenty-three, they told her she only had a strong year or two left in her as the prima ballerina and still she cried. Lilia stayed in his apartment, in the soviet block with the grey walls and lay beside him in bed but did not sleep with ease. They did not speak of the unborn child, even as the evidence of its existence swelled from beneath dresses and sweaters until one night she rolled over to him and told him she started thinking about raising the child, themselves.

He left his job mending the ballerinas’ costumes and found himself assistant to a figure skating coach. The pay was not much of an improvement, but it was somewhat better. He never set foot on the ice, himself, and yet he learned their movements.

They married two months before their child was born and on the day he arrived into the world, he bore his father’s name and no burden of illegitimacy. Yitschak they named him. He was a shy boy, but impassioned. Lilia did not return to dance, herself, but she started instructing and he came with her to every lesson. Yakov had said he learned to dance before he learned to walk. She would cradle him and hold him and sometimes she would try to dance again with him in her arms. Sometimes she would lift herself en pointe and he would squeal with laughter. 

He never skated. He tried once, when he was five. Yakov had just started out as a paid coach at that time and he watched with eyes that were, in those days, patient as Lilia helped the small boy, with dark hair and thick glasses on his nose, step on to the sleek surface, only for his knees to give out from beneath him. When he cried, Lilia told him to hug his father and it would all be better. He did feel better, but he did not skate after that.

At home, Lilia would smile at Yakov and they would sit with their child at the table and they would find each other’s hands, reaching across the wooden surface, fingers interlocked. They were youthful still. Each night as they bid their son goodnight, she would kiss his forehead.

“You are a work of art.” She would say and her heart would swell.

As Yitschak grew older, his pure heart remained intact, but he was a natural firebrand. He would dedicate his passions to drawing, to painting, creating bright, bold art that contrasted their grey city. He dedicated a series of months to painting the ragged street cats, feral creatures missing eyes with broken tails, reimagining them as deities of antique lands. He lived the life of a man of faith, studying so vehemently the religion that had been smeared across his father’s face. Yakov could not help but wonder if Yitschak took the faith that he did not have. When the dancers called Yakov “Jew,” he would recoil and yet Yitschak stood so tall. For him, the last name Felstman was a badge of honor. Yakov had expected no such thing.

When he was sixteen, Yitschak would run throughout the streets with his skeletal frame carrying him as fast as he could run, plastering the concrete with painted messages of peace. Yitschak believed in beauty and revolution and art. And then one evening he was shot dead in front of his own home, murdered by officials. He held up his hands, fingertips stained with oil pastels declaring he wanted only peace. But when Lilia found him, only blood stained his palms.

Lilia and Yakov were not the same after that.

***

She caught herself calling the young man Yitschak, the name still an open wound on her tongue, only opened further by teeth. Yitschak never skated nor danced the way Yuri did. But in him she saw the same drive, the unyielding determination to be someone and to mean something. And on another level, he made her think of her own youthful days, so enamored with cherishing a title that represented you.

“What did you call me, hag?” The boy spat, firmly planting one foot on the ground. She did not flinch at the name. She was old then.

“It was a slip of the tongue. Now perform from the beginning.” 

The boy scoffed but obliged and she saw that flame rise up.

_"Have pride in yourself as a work of art until the very end, Yuri."_

That is what she told him. He, too, was a fine artwork.

One night when the boy had retired, Yakov stayed awake while Lilia cleared the table from dinner.

“Yuri asked me who Yitschak was.” His voice was gruff and she turned to face him. For a moment they were silent and they stared at each other. For the first time, Lilia truly paid attention to the wrinkles on his face and how his hair, once dark and thick, was balding and she could not help but wonder if he saw how her own face was a mosaic of lines of years of mourning and of aging.

Yakov had many students and Lilia could not help but wonder if they all reminded him of Yitschak or if the passionate blonde boy did alone. There was Viktor the charmer, with his gentlemanly flair. Georgi the performer, his face always a painted kaleidoscope of colors. Mila the warm-hearted enthusiast. And Yuri the boy. Together, Lilia wondered in that moment, perhaps they built something of a sign of who Yitschak was. A testimony to a young man who died before they could live as magnanimously as he lived.

Still stone-faced, Lilia walked up to Yakov and wrapped her arms around him, still having to crouch after all of those years.

***

Lilia watches the young skaters dance, as she and Yakov once danced, themselves. She feels her lip curl up into a smile as she sees herself, both in the young woman with black hair spinning around her fiancée and the boy, the angry, wild-eyed young man who reminded her what it felt like to have a son. He grumbles and agrees to sway just ever so slightly with the other young man from Almaty. She watches all of their movements, the same way Yakov would watch the dancers from the wings.

Yuri scurries away from the other boy for a moment and sits on the chair to the other side of Lilia.

“You cannot tell me that you are weary. When I was your age, Yakov and I would sneak about the city, looking for holes in the wall to dance in.”

He rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at her, which she interprets as an inability to retort, a delay in his words while he contemplates what to say.

“I bet you had to duck really low in order to slide under his arm.”

Lilia laughs and Yakov only scowls. As she laughs, Yuri stares at her with mouth agape, astounded such a sound could emit from Lilia’s always so very pursed lips. He’s even more surprised at how pleasant it sounds. And for a brief moment, he realizes that they were young once too, before running to rejoin his new friend on the dance floor.

“Would you like to visit home?” Yakov asks, seemingly out of nowhere, though really, he is thinking about how fleeting youth is, just like Lilia was. And she turns, understanding what he meant.

***

When they go to the cemetery, Yuri accompanies them. Neither has visited Yitshack at the same time and yet his grave is clear and clean. Even Yuri places a stone on the marble slap and he understands, perhaps for the first time, that he was being fostered in the shared hole in their hearts. He thinks he can help them in their older years, because he still has his youth. He did not die like Yitschak and he had not yet aged like Lilia and Yakov.

Lilia and Yakov walk together and Yuri also realizes that they have not parted again. Her home is still his home is still Yakov’s home. And for the first time, Lilia shows him the bedroom that he had no idea existed, every inch of wall covered in paintings and sketches. Yuri sees paintings of cats and he beams. He always liked cats. He says nothing but all he sees is love, the unconditional, unwavering love he had never noticed until very recently.

“You are a work of art.” Lilia reminds him and out of the corner of his eye, he sees his angry, haggard coach grab the old woman’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I really, really, really love Lilia and Yakov and I really wanted to look at them in the past. I've seen some lovely, amazing fics about these two and just wanted to capture them in different moments.
> 
> I also listened to "It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton way too many times and..I like the idea of there being some reunion between them at the end. Maybe I'll write more looking at them rebuilding a relationship , but for now I really like..just hinting toward it. I feel like this story is about quiet hopefulness at its end.


End file.
